Firefight

I needed to say something. Something romantic! Something to sweep her off her feet. "You’re like a potato!" I shouted after her. "In a minefield." She froze in place. Then she spun on me, her face lit by a half-grown fruit. “A potato,” she said flatly. “That’s the best you can do? Seriously?” “It makes sense,” I said. “Listen. You’re strolling through a minefield, worried about getting blown up. And then you step on something, and you think, ‘I’m dead.’ But it’s just a potato. And you’re so relieved to find something so wonderful when you expected something so awful. That’s what you are. To me.” “A potato.” “Sure. French fries? Mashed potatoes? Who doesn’t like potatoes?” “Plenty of people. Why can’t I be something sweet, like a cake?” “Because cake wouldn’t grow in a minefield. Obviously.” She stared down the hallway at me for a few moments, then sat on an overgrown set of roots. Sparks. She seemed to be crying. Idiot! I thought at myself, scrambling through the foliage. Romantic. You were supposed to be romantic, you slontze! Potatoes weren’t romantic. I should have gone with a carrot.

As she’d left, I’d glanced at her gun. This time, when she’d pointed it at me, she’d flicked the safety on. If that wasn’t true love, I don’t know what was.

Don’t do anything stupid." "Don’t worry," I whispered over the line, "I’m an expert on stupid." "You’re..." "Like, I can spot stupidity, because I know it so well. The way an exterminator knows bugs really well, and can spot where they’ve been? I’m like that. A stupidinator." "Never say that word again," Prof said.

I hadn’t been a nerd, mind you. I’d just been the type of guy who spent a lot of time by himself, focused entirely on a single consuming interest.

We want what we can’t have, even when we have no right to demand it.

So, uh,” I said, shuffling from one foot to the other, “want to go with me to check up on Obliteration? If you’re not doing anything else important, I mean.” She cocked her head. “Did you just invite me on a date … to spy on a deadly Epic planning to destroy the city?” “Well, I don’t have a lot of experience with dating, but I’ve always heard you’re supposed to pick something you know the girl will enjoy...” She smiled. “Well, let’s get to it then.

Well, trust me,” I said. “I’m more intense than I look. I’m intense like a lion is orange.” “So, like … medium intense? Since a lion is kind of a tannish color?” “No, they’re orange.” I frowned. “Aren’t they? I’ve never actually seen one.” “I think tigers are the orange ones,” Mizzy said. “But they’re still only half orange, since they have black stripes. Maybe you should be intense like an orange is orange.” “Too obvious,” I said. “I’m intense like a lion is tannish.” Did that work? Didn’t exactly slip off the tongue.

My name is David Charleston. I kill people with super powers.

Reckoner Super Plan for Killing Regalia... Step One: find Regalia, then totally explode her. Lots and Lots. Step Two: put Val on decaf. Step Three: Mizzy gets a cookie.

That’s an answer in the same way that ketchup can be hair gel.

I wasn’t a nerd, mind you, but I’d spent a lot of my youth studying Epics, so I’d had limited experience with social interaction. I mixed with ordinary people about the same way that a bucket of paint mixed with a bag of gerbils.

Or, you know, you could interview the perfectly willing Epic walking beside you.” I coughed into my hand. “Well, um, this scheme may have started because I was thinking about how to rescue you from your powers. I figured if I knew how long it took, and what was required to hold an Epic … You know. It might help you.” “Aw,” she said. “That has to be the sweetest way someone has ever told me they were planning to kidnap and imprison me.

You can’t immerse yourself in something,” Prof said softly, “without coming to respect it.

As picky as a woman with her shoes,” Abraham grumbled. “Hey,” I said. “That’s insulting.” I knew plenty of women who were pickier with their guns than they were with their shoes.

If there was a universal law regarding mankind, it was that they’d find a way to ferment anything, given time.

The two great constants of life. Food and death.

I’m going to destroy you, little man!" Sourcefield yelled after me. "I’ll rip you apart like a piece of tissue paper in a hurricane!" "Wow," I said, reaching an intersection and taking cover by an old mailbox. "What?" Tia asked. "That was a really good metaphor.

Thank you. For being willing to talk. For not turning me in. For... being you.' 'I'm pretty good at being me,' I said. 'I've had all these years to practice--I hardly ever get it wrong these days.

I sense a very large but.” “Funny, because right in front of me, I see a—” “Watch it.

Where there are villains, there will be heroes. Just wait. They will come...

Stupid water, ruining my enjoyment of swimming.

I let out a sound that was definitely not a whimper. It was something far more manly, no matter what it sounded like.

The sudden and abrupt removal of my all-consuming goal … well, it was like I was a donut, and somebody had sucked all the jelly out of me. But I could stuff new jelly in there. It would just get my hands a little sticky in the process.

Standing out like a punk guitarist in a mariachi band.

As accurate as a blind man pissing during an earthquake.” “Wow...,” I breathed. She frowned at me. “That was a great metaphor,” I said. “Oh please.” “I need to write that down,” I said, ignoring her complaints, fishing for my new mobile to type it out.

We got there without being spotted. I pulled her in, then shut the door, pressing my back to it and exhaling like an epileptic pilot who'd just landed a cargo plane full of dynamite.

Discomforting, like finding a three-week-old sandwich behind your bed, when you swore you’d finished the darn thing.

Oh, thank you, I thought, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief. Dancing was stressful—but murderous demigods, those I could deal with.

Enforcement had done its best to kill me on several occasions. You didn’t just get over something like that. In fact, they had killed Megan. She’d recovered. Mostly.